A NEW LEASE FOR PRIVATE TUTORING

The appearance of the Student Council questionnaire officially opens the long-expected investigation into the subject of private tutoring schools. Hitherto the whole subject has been treated with a sort of hush-hush secrecy, as if the famed "cram" parlors were sacrosanct pillars of Harvard society and above the taint of investigation or suspicion. With the enrollment lists to these institutions growing steadily each year and with an annual scandal involving similarity of term themes among habitues, both the University and the Council have chosen a splendid occasion to launch this new drive against what may in time become a distinct detriment and danger. At present no one can point an accusing finger at the tutoring schools of Harvard Square and Mt. Auburn stating categorically that they constitute a harmful situation and tend to hurt rather than help the best interests of the University. This is not the case nor has it been the case in the immediate past. However, it is what the tutoring schools may become in the future that warrants a comprehensive investigation and survey.

In coordinating course material, in supplying more complete notes for those students who miss or do not take notes in class, in weeding out course super-structure and getting at fundamentals, and in training students in the practical aspect of how to answer examination questions--both from the point of view of form, and phraseology--private tutoring schools could and do play a very important role. It is this role that should be encouraged and facilitated. It is this part that the private tutors are perhaps best fitted to fill, being in a position to give each man a maximum of personal attention.

But tutoring schools should not degenerate into "passing C" factories. They should not be expected or allowed to push the lazy, weak or stupid through Harvard at any price. They should not put a premium on animal cunning in getting through examinations. Lastly, they should never, under any conditions, be allowed to write theses for students or to do work requiring the student's personal labor and attention. These are the dangers which have brought down on the heads of the schools both criticism and apprehension, and it is the elimination of these dangers for once and for all at which the Student Council must aim.

Private tutoring schools, like private business of any sort, thrive under competition. It is this very competition which insures the casual or regular patron surprisingly high standards, and usually full value for the price demanded. For this reason the denunciation of private tutoring by the University and the substitution of college-run reviews would probably fail to approach the standards set under the present system. Monopoly has a tendency to deteriorate and there is no reason to expect the University to be exempt from this law. Therefore, the ideal would seem to be a set standard for tutoring, approved by the several faculties and rigidly adhered to by the tutoring bureaus. In this way the danger of unscrupulous or devious methods of obtaining a degree might be minimized and the tutoring schools might assume a more dignified and worthwhile position in the undergraduate life.